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November 30
Menu: Smoked Salmon Toast; Spiced Venison; Black Currant Jelly; Creamed Turnips; Grilled Sweet Potatoes; Escarole Salad, Cheese Dressing; Peach Gateau; Coffee Spiced Venison-Rub a piece of venison with salt, pepper, vinegar, cloves, and allspice; then put into baking pan. Pour over 1 cup melted Crisco, add 2 sliced onions, sprig of thyme, 3 sprigs parsley, juice 1 lemon, and 1/2 pint hot water. Cover and bake in hot oven till tender. Sprinkle with flour, add 1 glassful of sherry wine and allow to brown.
A covered braise dressed up as a roast, written in the compressed telegraph style of the Crisco calendar. The instructions assume a cook who already knows how to handle a haunch of venison, so most of the work is filling in what was left unsaid.
- The hinge: it is a braise, not a roastDespite the "hot oven," the pan is covered and holds a cup of water, so the meat cooks largely in steam. Period sources reckon a "hot oven" loosely at somewhere around 400-450F, hot enough to drive off the liquid and toughen the lean muscle; 325F, covered, until the meat gives to a fork is closer to what the method actually wants. Save the high heat for the final uncovered browning.
- Size of the pieceNo weight is given. A haunch, shoulder or boned leg of 3 to 4 lb suits the quantities here and serves six to eight; at that size expect 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours.
- 1 cup melted CriscoCrisco was the product being sold, and the quantity reflects that. A quarter cup of any neutral fat or a little butter is enough to keep the surface from drying, and the finished sauce will not need skimming.
- Old measuresHalf a pint of hot water is 1 cup. A "glassful" of sherry is imprecise; period cookbooks usually reckoned a wineglassful at roughly 2 fl oz, about 1/4 cup.
- Undosed spicesSalt, pepper, cloves and allspice are given no amounts. For a 4 lb piece, about 2 teaspoons salt, 1 teaspoon pepper and 1/2 teaspoon each of ground cloves and allspice is in scale. Cloves overpower quickly, so err low.
- Vinegar in the rubThe vinegar tempers gamey flavor, and may soften the surface slightly, work that a modern farmed venison loin does not need. On a tougher wild haunch it is worth keeping; cider vinegar or red wine vinegar both suit.
- Flour and sherry at the endSprinkling dry flour over the meat and returning it uncovered gives a glaze rather than a gravy. If you want sauce, lift the meat out, whisk 2 tablespoons flour into the pan liquid, add the sherry and simmer until it coats a spoon.
- DonenessBraised venison should reach roughly 190-200F internally before the connective tissue softens, well past the point where it looks overcooked on a thermometer meant for steak. Rest it 15 minutes before carving.
The Story of Crisco (1913) was Procter & Gamble's book-length argument for hydrogenated cottonseed shortening, and its "Calendar of Dinners" assigned a menu to every day of the year, this venison falling on December 1 in the thick of the game season. Spiced venison of this kind descends from the English larder tradition, where whole haunches were rubbed with salt and warm spices — often said to be as much for keeping as for flavor — then baked slowly with wine and aromatics. What the Crisco version adds is the cup of shortening in place of the butter, suet or bacon fat an earlier recipe would have called for, and that substitution is presumably what earned the recipe its place in the book. Its presence on a December menu is also a reminder that venison was still a seasonal, often hunted meat in 1913, rather than something bought by the cut.